Study of UK techMARK Companies Shows There is More to Brand Positioning Via Search Engine Marketing than Achieving Top Placement

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Search marketing agency, Neutralize, have conducted a comprehensive study of the leading techMARK index companies examining how they present themselves in major search engines. Conducted throughout April 2004 the study highlights significant areas for improvement and for the first time in the industry defines some of the key brand positioning issues.

UK (PRWEB)May 27, 2004

Search marketing agency, Neutralize, have conducted a comprehensive study of the leading techMARK index companies examining how they present themselves in major search engines. Conducted throughout April 2004 the study highlights significant areas for improvement and for the first time in the industry defines some of the key brand positioning issues.

The techMARK Index represents the brightest stars in the UK corporate marketplace Â companies renowned for their progressive use of technology and innovative market positioning. As such, the use of the Internet in marketing is of crucial importance.

Industry figures estimate anywhere from 70%-80% of website visitors come from search engines. This means that SERP (Search Engine Results Page) listings for the majority of users represent the first interaction with a business.

The technical issue of maintaining good search engine listings is therefore both a PR, brand positioning and sales issue. Lucy Cokes MD of Neutralize says ÂIt is not enough to have a good-looking, useable, high performance website if your target audience canÂt find it. It is even worse if you are actively sending them down blind alleyways or dishing out the wrong information.Â

Neutralize suggest that companies should be taking a more holistic view to understanding how they present themselves online.

The results of the study showed that only 15 of the 81 companies included in the study had 100% accurate GoogleÂ listings. The remaining 66 companies returned search listings which contained ÂErroneousÂ results. In the worst-case scenario, over 64% of a company websites GoogleÂ listings were ÂErroneousÂ.

Neutralize defined the following brand effecting issues within the SERP:

Erroneous Hyperlinks lead to non-existent, out-of-date or pages which generate errors.

Unmarked Pages contain no descriptive copy or essential Meta Data.

Misleading, Fails to correctly describe the page content or over emphasises targeted keywords in an attempt to gain high rankings.

Lucy also believes that companies should be more aware of how information is being published by their websites, also that as the search marketing industry evolves the responsibility of ethical search engine marketing companies is much broader than simply trying to achieve top rankings. To assist companies in managing these types of issues Neutralize provide a range of services under the banner of continuity services.

For more information about continuity services Martin Dinham, Business Development Manager, Neutralize